ARTICLES: CONCEPTUAL

Reckoning with Hate: Faithful Routes Away from the Charlottesville Rally

Carol Grace Hurst

Ripples of both alarm and hope regarding have circled out from Charlottesville, subsequent to violent demonstrations held on August 11 and 12, 2017. This article tells less well-known stories out of Charlottesville, recounting faith groups’ prayers and vigils through the summer of 2017, and one Christian social work educator’s experience of witness with her faith community during the August 12th rally. The article also highlights several loving and creative responses that individuals, groups, and organizations made on August 12th and in the subsequent year after the rally to assist the injured, address the trauma, and begin to rebuild a sense of safety and normalcy in the community. The unfolding Charlottesville story offers an anti-racist case study of one community’s efforts under extreme conditions to reconcile and heal racist wounds.

Case Study Context

Scenes of violence from the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia burst into national and international awareness in the summer of 2017. Earlier that year, the Charlottesville City Council had voted to take down two statues of confederate generals erected during the era from city parks (Heaphy, 2017). The vote to remove these statues, due to their ties to and , could be seen as an effort to name the of the past and toward a new day. The plan to take the statues down sparked controversy. It was soon blocked in court. It also drew attention of white supremacist groups organizing online, including the , , , and other constituencies

Social Work & Christianity, Vol. 47, No. 1 (2020), 15–30 DOI: 10.34043/swc.v47i1.132 Journal of the North American Association of Christians in Social Work 16 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

of the political “alt-right.” These groups were strongly opposed to removal of the statues, seeing such as an assault on their white heritage (Heaphy, 2017, p. 1). The statues’ controversy and the parks, with the silent stone sentinels standing in a particular public place, provided a stage for the performance of strongly-held convictions about proper race relationships. Concerns with American traditions of free speech, gun ownership, and faith in the public square have riveted attention on Charlottesville. Racist rhetoric espoused on the more hidden virtual platforms of the internet flashed into the open, drawing answering counter- voices, with the media broadcasting these contending voices to a broad audience. Several small occurred in the months after the Council decision, culminating with the events of August 12, 2017. During the Unite Rally, three people lost their lives, 19 counter-protesters were injured in a car attack, and an additional 14 persons were hurt in other assaults (Heaphy, 2017). The Rally events unfolded with passionate enactment of free speech from starkly opposed parties. Clergy and others of faith stepped onto this public stage as well, holding hands, praying, and proclaiming belief in a Creator who loves each precious child of God, red, brown, yellow, black, and white. This narrative does not purport to tell the definitive truth about these painful Charlottesville events. It is offered, rather, only as part of the composite story. The article is based on news reports, and the experience of one local social work educator who felt called to peaceful worship as witness with her faith community during the chaotic day of the Rally. Perspectives from key informants from Charlottesville community organizations and churches were sought afterward to document community responses in the aftermath of the event. Responding to the crisis precipitated by the is an ongoing effort. The author’s participant-observer perspective intends to capture witness to love, , and community resilience that is part of the Charlottesville story as much as attention- catching and violence. The Charlottesville community experience is a case study of reckoning with racism in the present day that demonstrates the complexity of finding paths to reconciliation and the restoration of friendly, peaceable relationships. On Sunday, August 13, 2017, the day after the Unite the Right Rally, the Rev Elaine Ellis Thomas (2017) preached a sermon based on Matthew 14:22-43 at St. Paul’s Memorial Episcopal Church in Charlottesville. This passage tells the story of Jesus walking on the water and reassuring his disciples who fear for their lives during a storm. Peter gets out of the boat wanting to come to Jesus on the water, but he flounders. Jesus says to Peter, “Oh you of little faith, why do you doubt?” It was suggested, in light of the convulsion of violence in Charlottesville, that Jesus told Peter to stay in the boat with his community of people, rather than try to walk heroically on the water. There is work on a boat to keep it afloat, work to trim the sails, RECKONING WITH HATE 17 to bail the water, to make sure the boat that carries everyone is in good condition. Ellis Thomas (2017) reminded her congregation that when we are in the boat together, even in stormy water, we don’t have to be afraid. Faith calls us to the work of creating justice and equity for all God’s people. If we are in this boat together, we can survive the worst storms that the world might throw at us and get to the other side together.

Fascist and Anti-fascist Groups Focus on Statues’ Controversy

In May 2017, Richard B. Spencer, a self-described “white nationalist,” joined local anti-statue removal activist in organizing a small protest at the Lee Statue. The images of burning tiki-torches reminiscent of historical Ku Klux Klan terrorism, spread alarm in Charlottesville. Spencer, a graduate of Charlottesville’s but not a local resident, advocates and the building of an ethno-state for whites of European descent (Appelbaum & Lombroso, 2016). In recent years, Spencer garnered attention when controversy over his extreme views prompted protest on different college campuses at Spencer speeches. His is Neo-Nazi; supporters use German Nazi-inspired language and symbols, as well as the straight-armed . Anti-fascist groups, also called “Anti-fa” (Bray, 2017), have focused resistance to white nationalist ideas very personally on Mr. Spencer as a leader of a new fascist movement that Spencer calls the “Alt-right.” A video of Mr. Spencer being punched in the face by an , masked person, in the crowd at the Trump Inauguration in January 2017, spread virally on the internet (Tiffany, 2017). This meme, set to different musical tunes and with different rhymes, epitomizes the anti-fascist movement tactic to expose Neo-Nazi individuals to public censure for their ideas. is viewed as an ideology far too dangerous to tolerate as part of acceptable civil discourse (Bray, 2017; Gluckman, 2017). “Punching Nazis” has been a tactic of some groups (Marshall, 2017). Antifa are criticized for this tactic because petty violence may escalate into more violence from white supremacists and opens anti-racist resistance to criticism on moral grounds (Oppenheimer, 2017; , 2017). Furor over the right-wing identified as fascist, and the left-wing resistance movement identified as anti-fascist, would figure prominently in what came to pass in Charlot- tesville. With both movements organizing on-line and demonizing one another, many from outside Charlottesville traveled to the Rally expecting to meet violence from the other group (, 2017).

Response of Faith Groups during Summer of Hate

Opinions diverged on how to respond to additional white supremacist groups planning to protest in Charlottesville. A Ku Klux Klan group from 18 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

North Carolina obtained a permit for a protest in July 2017. The larger Unite the Right Rally was scheduled for August 2017. City authorities encouraged persons to vacate the downtown area; to not dignify the events with attention (Heaphy, 2017). Yet many citizens were drawn to these events, like moths gather to a bright yet dangerous light, due to alarm regarding the anticipated racist displays. Many persons felt called to make a counter witness against hateful ideology. The charged environment made it difficult to decide, individually or corporately, on what to do. There was a divide in the faith leader response between those who promoted prayer and witness and those who felt called to more direct resistance action (Rev Will Peyton, personal communication, June 25, 2018). Diverse faith congregations anticipated the rallies and organized to stay away, or joined together to witness in some manner to belief in God’s love for all persons. Ultimately, organized prayers were coordinated through the Charlot- tesville Clergy Collective (2018). Each Saturday of the summer, a different congregation held vigil at the statues. Hour after hour, different faith communities gathered prayerfully at the statues and then dispersed. This author participated in this with her faith community, Charlottesville Friends Meeting, at the Stonewall Jackson statue. The week before the August 12 Saturday Unite the Right Rally, there was a prayer service open to the public each night of the week at a different Charlottesville church. On Friday, the night before the rally, a standing room only interfaith crowd gathered at St Paul’s Memorial Episcopal Church. Rev. Traci Blackmon, Executive Director of Justice & Witness Ministries for the , gave a rousing sermon about David cutting off Goliath’s head. She alluded to the unfinished work of the , suggesting analogously, that the task now is to cut off the head of the giant of white supremacy. Communion, prayers, and singing followed. Another group of clergy who desired a more assertive response to events formed early in the summer. Congregate Cville called for 1000 clergy and faith leaders to join in partnership with local Charlottesville clergy to confront white supremacy. The call anticipated “direct, nonviolent action on a crucial day for our city, and in a critical moment for our country” (Caine-Conley & Wispelwey, 2017, para 2). Calling especially for white persons of faith to stand against white supremacy, the call brought in faith leaders from outside Charlottesville. Congregate Cville held a nonviolence training intended to help prepare a disciplined non-violent group to take action at the rally. This resulted in a group of approximately twenty committed persons (Democracy Now, 2017), who stood arm-in-arm, many in colorful clerical garb, to block the entrance to the park on August 12, 2017. They sang “This Little Light of Mine” and other religious-themed songs as they faced down the initial Unite the Right Rally marchers arriving to enter the park (Anonymous, 2017). RECKONING WITH HATE 19

The clergy line withstood verbal taunts, intimidation, and shoving from the Rally marchers, who included persons prepared to fight with helmets, shields, and bats, wearing and carrying Confederate flags, as well as private militia members armed with automatic weapons. It was widely reported that those on the clergy line felt that they were protected from serious injury or even death due to the intervention of numbers of anarchists and anti-fa counter-protesters who arrived and engaged the Rally participants in physical skirmishes to protect the clergy (Anonymous, 2017; Democracy Now, 2017; Lithwick, 2017).

August 12, 2017 Personal Testimony

These events involved persons of diverse denominations and faiths: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish, as well as secular persons with deep moral conviction who came together to witness against white supremacy. Those who gathered in counter-protest to the Unite the Right Rally would have each been able to tell an individual story of their personal motivations for coming to the event, as well as an individual testimony about what each one did and saw there. The subsequent story is the author’s personal testimony coming from the standpoint of an ethnic Mennonite, white woman, nurtured by two historic peace church traditions that resist being active participants in violence: the Anabaptists and the Religious Society of Friends.

On Saturday at 8:00 a.m., I set out, along with my husband, 16-year-old son, and 84-year old Dad in a wheelchair, with members of my faith community. We were going to march from the African American heritage center in Charlottesville’s old Jefferson School to McGuffy Park (one block away from the park with the Lee statue) to stand for our beliefs, before the scheduled Alt-Right Rally. We had matching sky-blue t-shirts made for the occasion. The words: Quakers- simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship were lettered in front of our hearts. I personally meant my presence as affirma- tion of the professional social work value that there is dignity and worth in all persons. My hope was that an old man with a white beard in a wheelchair would be a disarming presence to the neo-Nazis, and perhaps call to their someone who they might also love. Emerging from the parking deck, I prayed quietly for our safety, as we walked by Alt-righters also coming to march for their beliefs, fully armed with semi- automatic weapons, I wondered: was I just a naïve dreamer placing us in harm’s way? 20 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

By 9:45 a.m., we sent our son home with his Grandpa, and joined with other members of our meeting in silent worship in Charlottesville’s Justice Park. Our circle sat in view of Stonewall Jackson’s horse’s backside, where another group had a large painted sign reading ‘screw the Confederacy.’ In expectant waiting, we listened for inner Light and guidance, a Quaker tradition. The whirring sound of a circling police helicopter above filled our quiet (later that day it would crash outside town, killing the two officers aboard). A father with a seven- year-old son joined us. The boy’s t-shirt read, “just be kind.” He snuggled onto his father’s lap. His father looked tense and I felt I understood the parental struggle of wanting to teach really important values dueling with anxiety over whether his precious little boy should actually be there. Other counter-protest groups served food, and there was a low hum of humans chatting and laughing. There was a clown with two signs: ”shame” and ”welcome fool’s convention.” A small group of armed anti-fa at the perimeter of the park had told us they would protect us. We didn’t necessarily want such protection. Quakers believe in “that of God in every one” (Amoss Jr, 2011, para 7), and our worship on this day was meant to affirm this tenet.

Our meeting closed at 11:00 a.m., and we disbanded. Several left to join the singing happening on the porch steps of the First facing the Park where the Lee statue still stood in its stony stillness, oblivious to the human drama. We went with six other Quakers in a circle down to the pedestrian mall hoping to support a local business with our lunch. Shortly after we sat down in our blue t-shirts at a table, a young woman came and sat beside me, saying “I’m by myself and freaked out. Can I be with you?” She said she was a reporter from and she showed us all her pictures just taken from the faceoff happening in Emancipation Park. As the fighting in the street around Emancipation Park was going out of control, we watched in stunned horror. Images came at us from the National News on the restaurant television showing scenes from the park a block and a half from where we sat. When we heard that a had been declared, we left the restaurant in two small groups. Following the guidance of the cops, we headed away from that Park. We circled back to Water Street and walked up 4th Street, where a distressed soul would drive his car deliberately into a peaceful group 45 minutes later. We honor- guarded the reporter back to RECKONING WITH HATE 21

her car at Justice Park. We had an eighty-one year old member of our meeting with us, so we kept having to slow down so she could catch her breath. My husband would also say, “Wait, go slower” to keep a distance between us and other obviously right-wing groups also walking about. On the way, a white pick-up truck screeched by, with six young men in back, wearing white shirts, helmets, and holding shields. They were cursing loudly, their faces contorted with rage, demanding that their driver turn right to head back up Market St. where the police were clearing Emancipation Park due to the fighting even before their Rally had officially begun. The driver turned left instead. I cheered for this driver silently for standing up to his peers. Later, I wondered if one of his pickup passengers was the man who chose to use his car as a lethal weapon, careening into the crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, and backing up and running over more persons in reverse. The young men’s hateful expressions are my most disturbing memory from this experience. We managed to get the reporter back to her car parked on the street by Justice Park. On that fearful stop-start trek there, she leaned in to say in hushed voice, “I want to tell you, I’m Jewish, but I don’t want anyone to know.” I un- derstood then the reason both for her vulnerability and her courage. We were in a surreal nightmare with bands of Neo- Nazis roving the streets. learned later that Alt-right websites were calling for the synagogue to be burned down (Green, 2017). It is located a half block from where we hugged her goodbye. “Go with God,” I said. Adam King (2017), one of the clergy from the clergy line, related that when word of the car attack came, he and other clergy ran towards the crash scene, knowing their purpose was to provide “care and comfort to as many people as possible.” His sentiment is echoed many times over with the love that flowed in and towards Charlottesville following this public tragedy.

Aftermath of the Event-Outpouring of Love

Charlottesville’s two hospitals spent more than $200,000 preparing for the emergency response before the August 11 and 12 events, and then providing emergency care to the wounded (Suarez, Wrabel, & Serven, 2017). Even as emergency responders were loading the injured for the trip to the hospital, the first phase of an evolving response to the crisis from the Charlottesville community and beyond had started. 22 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

As the news of the car attack reverberated through town, around , and indeed the world, hearts were moved. Events evoked collective outrage at the violation of social norms for a civil society. “Love” became a word that was used frequently in Charlottesville as a contrast to the “hate” rhetoric that had visited the community. Both individuals and community organizations stepped up to respond with tangible acts and care to address the trauma. Some citizens knit C’ville hearts. These hearts and pictures of Heather Heyer went up all over town. Another citizen donated hundreds of t-shirts with the word C’ville placed inside a heart to express community love. Local music sensation the Dave Matthews Band (2017) hosted a free community concert for Charlottesville which played September 24, 2017 in University of Virginia’s Scott Stadium. “A Concert for Charlottesville” featured Dave Matthews Band, Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake, , Chris Stapleton, The Roots, Brit- tany Howard of Alabama Shakes, Cage the Elephant and other special guests. This concert brought considerable funding to the cause of philanthropy for Charlottesville. Additional individuals, Go Fund Me pages, businesses, and private and corporate foundations also gave funds. Overall, 1.5 million dollars flowed towards the healing effort. While nineteen victims sustained physical injuries from the attack, there were many more who witnessed the attack and also experienced immediate emotional impacts. Community licensed clinicians, both social workers and professional counselors, initially provided pro-bono trauma counseling to persons who desired this (Carol Snell-Feikema, personal communication, September 5, 2017). With funding from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation [CACF] (n.d.) Heal Charlottesville Fund, a new case manager position was created at Partner for Mental Health, whose job has focused solely on attending to the ongoing recovery needs of attack survivors. In partnership with the Pathways Program of The Haven funds were provided for survivors’ living expenses, meeting recovery needs, and assisting each individual to find a way forward (Brennan Gould, CEO Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, personal communication, June 11, 2018). Executive leaders of community organizations processed the perceived meaning of the event in the context of organizational mission and impacts on clients. Those serving Charlottesville’s population of resettled refugees, undocumented immigrants, and persons of color all noted new fears and anxieties among those being served (Jon Nafziger, Executive Director of Charlottesville Area Children’s Health Improvement Program, personal communication, October 11, 2017). Rapid response grants from the CACF Heal Charlottesville Fund supported organizations serving the community with counseling for those coping with the tragedy, including first responders who had cared for people during the violence. Funds also went towards needs within the Jewish community (Gould, 2018). RECKONING WITH HATE 23

On August 12, when Athena Gould, Executive Director of Big Brothers- Big Sisters Charlottesville, first watched the disturbing images from the Rally, she felt concern about how to discuss the display of hatred with her own nine and six year-old daughters. That maternal concern spread to all the children of Charlottesville as she thought about young people processing the story. She had the inspiration to start a campaign linking individual children with caring messages. With support from her board, and the national office of Big Brothers Big Sisters’ more than 300 affiliates, theDear Young Person campaign took off on social media. Twenty-one leaders of Charlottesville agencies serving children and youth wrote a joint public letter in the days following the Rally, articulating concern for hopeful and positive role models for youth in light of events. The letter invited persons to participate in Dear Young Person. Word of the campaign spread from person to person, and an avalanche of postcards started arriving in Charlottesville. Each of the more than 15,000 postcards received from across the country were sorted and matched with an individual child or youth. With the help of other youth-serving agencies, and especially Dr Rosa Atkins, Superintendent of Charlottesville City Schools, the messages of care and encouragement were distributed (Athena Gould, Executive Director Big Brothers-Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge, personal communication, June 11, 2018). The United Way Area was another community organization that stepped forward with under pressure of the community’s need. “We didn’t want to be hasty in our response. We considered carefully what the role for United Way should be. We knew we needed to reach out to diverse communities and that we should be listening to these people about what we should do” (Caroline Emerson, United Way Thomas Jefferson Area, personal communication, June 6, 2018). United Way personnel reached beyond their comfortable and usual alliances to ask diverse community persons what was wanted and needed. Eventually, a consulting committee of around twenty community persons was formed, including persons from the Temple, the Mosque, and from white, Black, and Interracial churches, and business leaders of multiple races. Ideas began to coalesce around hospitality and welcome, and the idea to hold a community meal was born. Continuing to follow through with the consultation and listening process, leaders made decisions made about where such a large public meal could be held and what sort of program or talking points might be a part of it. A Community Table event convened on October 15, 2017. The consult- ing committee became a hospitality committee representing many sides of the Charlottesville community. An open invitation to all in Charlottesville was extended (United Way TJA, 2018). The charming online invitation pictured a graphic of a place setting with the words “The power of gather- ing is boundless. Let’s be together” (Virginia National Bank, 2017). The hospitality committee found consensus on the choice of an outside lunch 24 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

venue, without an agenda, invited media, or politicians. It was just people in a town getting together over a meal. The United Way used its talent at convening events on the practical details of feeding the over 700 people who would attend. Restaurants were asked what they might be willing to contribute to the meal—perhaps beans, rice, or a specialty item. Everyone who was asked to contribute agreed to do so. Emerson observed that the many people who worked on the meal gave of themselves freely, wanting to do something good for the community. “Everyone seemed to feel like it was the right thing to do. It ended up feeling like a family reunion!” (Caroline Emerson, United Way Thomas Jefferson Area, personal communication, June 6, 2018).

Aftermath of the Event- Community Conflict and Legal Wrangling

The city placed black shrouds over both statues, and someone kept trying to remove them. The 2018 Virginia General Assembly session failed to pass a bill that would have allowed Charlottesville to remove the statues. A judge, due to another lawsuit, made the city take the black shrouds off the statues a few months later. Grand juries convened to hear details of charges against individuals who assaulted other individuals. Indictments came down. Some trials have been completed, with others still pending. Legal questions regarding responsibility and accountability for the harm resulting from the Rally will go on for a long time. There are diverse opinions about what went wrong and who is to blame (Heaphy, 2017; Provence, 2017). Citizens have angrily clamored at public meetings about leaders’ failures to foresee the extent of the danger and adequately protect the public from a hostile and violent invasion. City Manager Maurice Jones hired former federal prosecutor Tim Heaphy to do an independent critical review for the City of Charlottesville. When results were released in December 2017, they immediately sparked more controversy due to argument over whether Heaphy was too lenient on the city, whether Jones had a legal right to request the study, and the $350,000 cost of the review (Provence, 2017). The 220-page Heaphy report found government failures in protection of the fundamental right of free speech and in protection of public safety (Heaphy, 2017). The Heaphy report also found that law enforcement failed to protect citizens from harm, injury, and death (Wamsley, 2017). In less than a year’s time, the police chief, and the city manager have been replaced with new leaders. Elections for new city councilors yielded new members to the city council who voted for a new mayor. After the Rally, an immediate form of contemporary vigilante justice pursued those who had joined ranks to express such hatred. Attendees were “doxed.” That is, the voluminous pictures from the event were used to identify attendees and publicly identify them as racist in their home com- RECKONING WITH HATE 25 munities. This led to job losses, and suspension of many attendees’ accounts on different internet platforms. At least one attendee was “banned for life” from the on-line dating site Ok cupid (Selk, 2017). Jason Kessler, Richard Spencer, and leaders of the different private militia groups were named as defendants in several lawsuits. Sines v Kessler (2017) argues that leaders of the Rally engaged in to incite violence and that they should be held liable for the injuries and damages sustained to ten plaintiff victims of violence at the Rally. Another case, City of Charlottesville v. Light Foot Militia et al. (2018) has the city joined with multiple downtown businesses as plaintiffs, arguing that the Rally leaders’ use of private militias and paramilitary tactics transformed Charlottesvillle into a military theatre with grave risks for all (p. 17). The complaint argues that private armies do not have any protection under either Virginia or federal law because well-ordered militias need accountability to civil authority. The ultimate outcome of these suits may address important national gun issues and clarify whether the First Amendment’s free speech protections apply to extreme and incitements to violence.

Aftermath of the Event- Hope for Transformative Change

This horrible event scarred the community deeply. Yet, contained within the overwhelming public outrage about what happened are seeds for deeper constructive change in race relationships in Charlottesville. The hearts displayed on t-shirts and on posters in business windows are not just sentimental. Behind the hearts are real people trying to figure out how to go forward in addressing the challenges of racism in Charlottesville (McKenzie, 2017). As resilience rises in Charlottesville, transformational change may emerge. A year before the Rally, Quaker social worker and community organizer, Elizabeth Shillue brought the 2014 Film I’m Not Racist...Am I? to Charlottesville as an anti-racist education effort. The film is a 90-minute documentary about 12 New York City teenagers who talk about racism over the course of a year while attending multiple intensive workshops. The film reveals the intimate struggles felt by these young people during this time. A talkback discussion with the Film’s Director, Catherine Wigginton Greene, and Producer, André Robert Lee was received positively after the initial two Charlottesville screenings. The formation of a grass-roots organization named Beloved Community Cville resulted. After the trauma of the Unite the Right Rally, interest in this anti-racist education effort exploded. By request, Beloved Community Cville brought the film screening and post-movie facilitated discussion of racism to 24 different venues around Charlottesville, including local non-profits and public schools. They have engaged over 3,300 persons in reflections on racism and how to transform it in daily relationships. Forty teachers have 26 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

participated in facilitator trainings. Ongoing anti-racism workshops for youth and adults are planned to further the Beloved Community Cville mission, stated in a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King “Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls, as well as a quantitative change in our lives” (Beloved Community Cville, n.d. home page). Charlottesville Area Community Foundation [CACF] is another organization radically changed by this event. The car attack happened at the CACF doorstep at 4th Street, NE. This section of the street has since been renamed Honorable Heather Heyer Way. When employees go to work each day, they walk by the wall that continues to bear chalk messages like: “Gone but not forgotten-Heather,” “Love conquers all,” “,”,and “Hate is heavy so let it go.” The event thrust the organization into a completely new leadership role in the community. Hurt resulting from the Rally was experienced differently depending on each community member’s standpoint. For many, the vulnerability and horror were a shock; a new normal they could hardly believe. For others, used to being treated as “the other” due to living with racism on a daily basis, the hurt was a deep trauma, but not a surprise. CACF CEO Brennan Gould (2018) explains: ….we have to be willing to acknowledge that due to historical and structural contexts, people experience our community differently…There remain structural, longstanding, silent mechanisms of exclusion that have been baked into our society and institutions from their beginnings. There are persistent racial disparities in health, education, policing and incarceration, economic opportunity, mobility, and wealth-building. Deeper, more structural causes are the reason that significant disparities persist (p.3). In June 2018, CACF finished making a historic round of grants to impact the structural forces of racism that exist in Charlottesville. To make these grants, they opened their processes to seek application from those who would not have known how to apply for a grant in the past. They promoted a grant-writing workshop with the Center for Effective Non-profits. They accepted applications in Spanish. They accepted applications that were hand-written. They created more inclusive grant review processes, adding to review committees. The foundation distributed one million dollars shared between 42 different projects in three impact areas: 1) increasing diversity and inclusion in community decision-making processes, 2) advancing racial equity, and 3) increasing education of structural racism in the telling of collective history (Wrabel, 2018). The ripples of hope circling out from Charlottesville’s summer of hate followed from many acts of courage shown facing down a philosophy RECKONING WITH HATE 27 that says one group of people is better than another. The ripples of hope go out as more people name the impacts of structural racism and seek to undo them. The ripples of hope go out when City Council, community organizations, police, and city services grapple with structures of exclusion and racism in standard operating practices. This is the work of staying with the people in the boat metaphorically named by Rev Elaine Ellis Thomas’ (2018) sermon. If everyone is together in the same Charlottesville boat, there is work to do to keep the boat afloat. There is work to make sure that the community that is the home of everyone is in good condition. It is the work of faith to envision how to create more justice and equity for all, so that after the storm, the people cross to the other side together.

Messages from Charlottesville for Social Work Educators

The events in Charlottesville reverberated around the nation. Making sense of them is a complicated and contested task. Comments President Trump made the day after the Unite the Right Rally that “there were good people on both sides” were cast as too late and morally wishy-washy (Parker, 2019). These comments echo a central moral weakness of our postmodern life together. When there is no grand narrative, no true north on the moral compass, narratives that exist compete for dominance. When true horror occurs, like assault and , society demands a better accounting. It is the traditional role of religious leaders to step forward with moral lights. Individuals and groups, both interfaith and secular, were drawn to make statements with their conduct in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017. There was horror on that day and how we go on, what lessons we take away, matter. Social scientists use narratives to study people. Christian Smith (2003) writes about people telling their own stories as a way to orient the self and decide what choices are right for particular people in particular moments. He says when we are “placed within a particular drama, we come to know … how we are to act, why, and what meaning that has in the larger scheme of reality” (p. 78). We live in a time when membership in organized religious groups is waning, a time when many identify as “spiritual” rather than “religious.” Yet even so, when dramatic and dangerous threats arise, people still come forward to speak with moral power, as they did in response to the Rally in Charlottesville. In the crisis time, worship and prayer and song still brought comfort and hope to the people. We can expect in a society riven by fear and division, that there will come more such times when moral clarity is needed. Then, the message that Jesus loves all the children of the world, red, brown, yellow, black, and white, will need each voice to join in the song, so that there is an actual moral majority. Christian social work educators are specially placed to teach students to engage in faith-based, anti-racist social change efforts. ❖ 28 SOCIAL WORK & CHRISTIANITY

References

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Carol Grace Hurst, LCSW, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Social Work at Eastern Mennonite University,1200 Park Rd., Harrisonburg, VA 22802, Phone: 540-432-4451. Email: [email protected]

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